Johann
Strauss II, the most famous and enduringly successful of 19th-century light
music composers, was born in Vienna on 25 October 1825. Building upon the firm
musical foundations laid by his father, Johann Strauss I (1804-1849) and Joseph
Lanner (1801-1843), the younger Johann (along with his brothers, Joseph and Eduard)
achieved so high a development of the classical Viennese waltz that it became
as much a feature of the concert hall as of the ballroom. For more than half a
century Johann II captivated not only Vienna but also the whole of Europe and
America with his abundantly tuneful waltzes, polkas, quadrilles and marches.
The thrice-married 'Waltz King' later turned his attention to the composition
of operetta, and completed 16 stage works besides more than 500 orchestral
compositions - including the most famous of all waltzes, The Blue Danube
(1867). Johann Strauss II died in Vienna on 3 June 1899.

The
Marco Polo Strauss Edition is a milestone in recording history, presenting, for
the first time ever, the entire orchestral output of the 'Waltz King'. Despite
their supremely high standard of musical invention, the majority of the
compositions have never before been commercially recorded and have been painstakingly
assembled from archives around the world. All performances featured in this
series are complete and, wherever possible, the works are played in their
original instrumentation as conceived by the ¡¥master orchestrator¡¦ himself, Johann
Strauss II.

[1] EINZUGSMARSCH
AUS "DER ZIGEUNERBARON"

(Entrance
March from 'The Gypsy Baron')

On
24 October 1885 the curtain rose on the world première of Johann Strauss's
tenth operetta, Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron). The reporter for
the Fremden-Blatt (25.10.1885) recognised the entire evening as "a
great triumph for the composer", and the packed house applauded
jubilantly throughout the performance.

Among
the many musical and visual highlights which so enchanted the first night
audience at the Theater an del Wien more than one hundred years ago was the
spectacle, towards the close of Act 2, of Hussars and enlisted Hungarian
soldiers setting off together to join in the war against Spain. (This is, in
fact, one of the few historical inaccuracies in the operetta, for during the
Austrian War of Succession, 1740-48. Imperial troops never set foot in Spain.)
Act 3 takes place two years later: the war is over and the victorious Hungarian
troops are given an heroic welcome as they enter Vienna to the accompaniment of
Strauss's spirited and rhythmic choral entrance march, "Hurrah die Schlacht
mitgemacht hab'n wir im fernen Land" ('Hurrah, we have taken part in
the battle in a distant land').

With
his score for Der Zigeunerbaron, Johann Strauss scaled fresh artistic
heights from which, as the critic for the influential Die Presse (25.10.1885)
noted, "there remains only a short step to opera". Yet, for a
composer who lacked intuitive dramatic instinct and thus never fully became a
man of the theatre, Strauss showed an uncharacteristic concern for theatrical
detail in his dealings with the Zigeunerbaron librettist, Ignaz
Schnitzel (1839-1921) - and never more so than with his 'vision' for the final
Act of this operetta. During summer 1885 Johann interrupted work on Der Zigeunerbaron
with a trip to Berlin to conduct jubilee performances of his operettas Die
Fledermaus (1874), Der lustige Krieg (The Merry War, 1881) and Eine
Nacht in Venedig (A Night in Venice, 1883). Before returning to Vienna to
work on the final preparations for the première of Der Zigeunerbaron at
the Theater an del Wien, Johann wrote to Schnitzel from Berlin on 12/13
September 1885: "The entrance march must be imposing. About 80-200
soldiers (on foot, on horseback), camp followers (in Spanish, Hungarian and
Viennese dress), common-folk, children with shrubs and flowers - which latter
they scatter before the returning soldiers, etc. etc., must appear; the stage
opened right back to the Papageno-Tor [an architectural feature of the Theater
an der Wien] - it must be a scene which is much, much more splendid than it
was in 'Feldprediger' [Carl Millöcker's 1884 operetta of this name] -
since this time we want to imagine an Austrian army & people in a
joyful mood because of a victory they have won!".

Johann
Strauss himself conducted the première of Der Zigeunerbaron on 24
October 1885, and thus also presided over the first performance of the Act 3
(No. 17) Einzugsmarsch in its original choral setting. Six weeks later,
the composer's brother Eduard conducted the Strauss Orchestra in the first
concert performance of this stirring piece, arranged for orchestra alone, when
it opened the second half of Eduard's Sunday afternoon concert in the Golden
Hall of the Musikverein on 6 December 1885. Members of the enraptured audience
were able to buy copies of the Einzugsmarsch when the piano score of the
work went on sale from C.A. Spina's Vienna publishing house on 12 December
1885.

[2]
FAREWELL TO AMERICA. WALTZ o. op

In
the immediate wake of Johann Strauss's sole visit to the United States of
America in summer 1872, when he conducted on numerous occasions in Boston and
New York, no less than seven publishers issued waltzes purportedly written by
Vienna's Waltz King. Only two from the total of nine compositions published are
known to have been performed by Strauss during his American trip - the Jubilee
Waltz and the Manhattan Waltzes. It is a matter for conjecture
whether the remaining works published were written by Strauss in America, or
completed by him after his return to Vienna and submitted by post. A third
possibility is that some of the publications had nothing to do with Strauss
himself, but were compiled by opportunistic publishers anxious to benefit from Johann's
visit and the attendant clamour for new Strauss music.

Farewell to America, unlike its companion
piece Greeting to America, is a pastiche waltz comprising melodies from
previously published works by the Waltz King. Common to both works is a
quotation from J. Stafford Smith's The Star-Spangled Banner - in Greeting
to America it appears in the Introduction while in Farewell to America it
features as a pianissimo statement in the Coda. The thematic material
used for Farewell to America is drawn from the following published
Strauss waltzes:

The
presence of a waltz theme by Josef Strauss (Waltz 4B) may possibly indicate
that Farewell to America was compiled, not by Strauss himself, but by a
house arranger for the publisher, Oliver Ditson. This possibility is given
greater credence by the fact that many Strauss family compositions published
outside Vienna merely credited authorship to "J.Strauss". An
arranger unfamiliar with the Strauss catalogue of works might well have assumed
that 'J.Strauss' was the famous Johann, rather than his younger brother. It is
worthy of note that not one of the waltzes comprising Farewell to America is
known to have featured in any of Johann's programmes in Boston or New York in
1872, and all date from the period 1853 to 1864. Especially interesting is the
fact that the publisher, Oliver Ditson, who was one of the principal backers of
the Boston Jubilee, was also the publisher of Dwight's Journal, a
periodical which regularly denounced the festival as "humbug".

The
first piano edition of Farewell to America was registered with the
Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington in 1872 by the publishers,
Oliver Ditson & Company of Boston. Since no orchestral material seems to
have been published - at least, none has been found - this present recording
features a reconstruction by the American conductor and composer Jerome D.
Cohen, based on Ditson's piano edition of the waltz and on the original
published sets of orchestral parts for the individual waltzes comprising it. In
this form, Farewell to America was first performed by the Plymouth
Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Rudolph Schlegel, at the Memorial Hall,
Plymouth, Massachusetts on 1 April 1989.

Johann
and his wife, Jetty, prepared to bid 'Farewell to America' on 13 July 1872,
bound for Bremerhaven, Baden-Baden and, eventually, Vienna. As they waited for
the Nord-Deutsch Lloyd steamship Donau to depart, Johann spoke to a
journalist for the New York Times. The interview, published under the
heading "Departure of Johann Strauss for Europe", appeared in
the paper the following day and read, in part: "Mr Strauss said that he
bade farewell to the people of the United States with the kindest feelings. He
should always remember this country with delight, especially the city of New
York, of which he spoke very enthusiastically, calling it a 'second Paris'. He
expressed a desire to once again publicly thank the press in general for the
courtesy and goodwill it had invariably extended toward him since his advent at
the Boston Jubilee".

[3]
ROMANZE AUS "FAUST" (Romance from "Faust")

In
the archives of Austrian Radio (Österreichischer Rundfunk) and in the music
collection of the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek)
there exist two versions of a Faust-Romanze. Both scores bear the
heading (in translation): "Romance from Faust arranged by Joh.
Strauss", but are the work of different contemporary copyists. The two
scores differ from each other only minimally, and present an almost
note-for-note transcription for flügelhorn solo and orchestra of Siebel's
Romance, "Si le bonheur à sourire t'invite" ('If happiness
invites you to smile'), from Act 4 of the opera Faust by Charles Gounod
(1818-93). The aria (No. 20) comes in the first scene of this act: Marguerite,
betrayed and deserted by Faust, is in her room. Siébel, a village youth who
also loves Marguerite, remains true to her and offers her his love in the
Romance.

Gounod's
five-act opera Faust triumphed at its world premiere on 19 March 1859 at
the Théâtre-Lyrique in Paris, and productions followed in other countries.
Under the title Margarethe (to avoid confusion with already established Faust
theatre pieces by Ignaz von Seyfried and Louis Spohr), the first Viennese
performance was mounted at the k.k. Hof-Operntheater (k.k. Hoftheater nächst dem
Kärtnertor) on 8 February 1862. Her Majesty's Theatre, London, staged the opera
on 11 June 1863, while St Petersburg first saw Gounod's masterpiece (in
Italian) in January 1864.

It
may have been as a result of this production of Gounod's opera in St Petersburg
that Johann Strauss's concert programmes at Pavlovsk during his 1864 summer
season featured a number of pieces based on music from Faust. Apart from
his own Faust-Quadrille (also featured on this Marco Polo CD), Johann
delighted his Russian audiences with a "Potpourri aus Faust", a
"Walzer aus Faust" and a "Romanze aus Faust". Indeed,
on 1 June 1864 (= 20 May, Russian calendar) the audience at Pavlovsk's Vauxhall
Pavilion was treated to a performance of all three works. Pavlovsk audiences
first heard Johann's arrangement of the Romanze aus Faust at his concert
on 25 May 1864 (= 13 May), and the work was performed a further 21 times
(including encores) during that season. (This compares with 24 performances
achieved by the Walzer aus Faust and 33 by the Potpourri aus Faust.)

The
Romanze aus Faust is a particularly interesting concert piece.
Contemporary press reports make it clear that Siébel's aria had been heard at
the first Viennese performance of Gounod's opera, but over the decade following
the 1859 world première of the work the French composer was to alter and
embellish his original score. One of the casualties of his revisions was the
removal of Siebel's "Si le bonheur à sourire t'invite", and
even today this number is often omitted from productions of the opera. For this
reason, Johann Strauss's arrangement of this Romanze aus Faust is a
valuable addition to the list of performing material he placed at the disposal
of the Strauss Orchestra. Suggestions that Strauss made his arrangement of the Romanze
immediately after the first Viennese production of Gounod's opera (1862)
seem without basis. Not only are such claims unsubstantiated by the Viennese
press, but in view of the predilection of Russian audiences for musical
romances, had the arrangement existed in early 1862 it ought to have featured
on the programmes of Johann's 1862 and 1863 Pavlovsk seasons. As it did not, it
seems likely that the first Russian performance on 25 May 1864 (= 13 May) was
also the world première of the piece.

The
existence of the two scores of the Romanze aus Faust in the collections
of Austrian Radio and the National Library is indeed fortuitous, for the
arrangement does not appear in the catalogue of the Strauss Orchestra's archive
which Eduard Strauss prepared after his retirement in 1901. Had the work been
in the Orchestra's archive (as was the material for several pieces from Gounod's
opera), it would certainly have perished when Eduard burned the entire musical
archive in 1907.

This
present recording of the Romanze aus Faust utilises orchestral parts
prepared by Christian Pollack from the manuscript score copy preserved in the
Austrian Radio archives.

[4] KAISER-ALEXANDER-HULDIGUNGS-MARSCH

(Tsar
Alexander Homage March) [op. 290]

Among
the issues for debate facing the reigning monarchs of the German states who
attended the 'Fürstentag' (Conclave of Princes) at Frankfurt in 1863 was the
national-liberal insurrection in Russian Poland, which had broken out in Warsaw
on 22 January 1863. The uprising, an act of defiance against Russian rule,
swiftly spread throughout Poland, reaching a peak during March 1863. Somewhat
perversely, the initial patriotic street demonstrations followed in the wake of
a relaxation in the severity of Russian rule in Poland by the 'Tsar Liberator'
Alexander II (1818-81). The rebel forces had no organised troops of their own,
and when the anticipated help of France failed to materialise the resistance
crumbled into a hopeless partisan campaign. Nonetheless, the Tsar's army
experienced a great deal of trouble in restoring some kind of peace to Poland,
at the same time being under threat of Western intervention on behalf of the
Poles. There were numerous excesses and atrocities, and Britain, France and
Austria lodged official protests at St Petersburg. Where matters of Polish
affairs were concerned, the majority of the German states were anti-Russian:
only Prussia showed its support for Russia. Almost a year was to pass before
Polish resistance was finally quelled.

The
summer of 1864 found Johann Strauss once more in Russia, this time to conduct
his ninth season of concerts at Pavlovsk. Mindful of the political and military
events in Poland during the previous year, he elected - at his own expense - to
organise a music festival at the Pavlovsk Vauxhall Pavilion on 6 August 1864 (=
25 July, Russian calendar). While the programme records of the (Russian)
Strauss Orchestra's viola-player, F.A. Zimmermann, state that the concert was
held "for the benefit of the invalids" from the warfare in
Poland, the St Petersburger Zeitung (5 August / 24 July 1864) praised
Strauss for donating the proceeds from his forthcoming benefit concert to "the
widows and orphans of those who fell in the latest hostilities". The
German-language Russian newspaper continued: "Herr Strauss has, we
hear, been granted permission to make use of the entire
regimental corps of musicians of the Guards for the proposed monster concert,
and to invite all the officers in the encampment to this musical festival. The
musical director of the Guard [Kapellmeister Dörfeldt] will, on this
occasion, conduct an orchestra of 300 military musicians and, together with the
orchestra of Herr Strauss, will perform several pieces of music. If we add,
finally, that Fräulein Michailowski of the Russian Opera [at St Petersburg]
will perform several songs and Herr Strauss has composed for the festive
evening a special military march, which will be played by the combined
orchestras, we can doubtless justifiably expect that Herr Strauss's benefit
will offer the public something brilliant and seldom heard".

The
"special military march" which Johann Strauss composed for his
benefit concert appeared as the ninth item on the programme. Entitled Kaiser-Alexander-Huldigungs-Marsch,
the carefree piece proved an immediate success and had to be repeated
twice. The march was not the only one of the Viennese composer's works
receiving its première at the benefit concert on 6 August 1864 (= 25 July), for
Johann took the opportunity to conduct the first performance of his potpourri Hommage
au public russe (Volume 42 of this CD series). Both compositions duly
appeared in print from the St Petersburg publisher, A. Büttner, although
neither saw publication in Vienna. The Kaiser-Alexander-Huldigungs Marsch, bearing
the opus number 290 and Johann's "most respectful" dedication "To
his Majesty the Tsar Alexander II,Tsar of all the Russias etc.
etc.", met with such success that Büttner was obliged to run to
several printings of the piece. In return for Strauss's dedication of the
march, the Tsar responded by bestowing upon the composer the Knight's Cross of
the Order of Stanislaus, which Strauss received in 1865. In addition, the
Governor of St Petersburg recognised not only the musical dedication to Tsar
Alexander but also Strauss's humanitarian efforts in organising the benefit
concert, and on 23 October 1864 (= 11 October) honoured him with a "gold
medal inscribed 'for zeal', to be worn around the neck on the Alexander
Ribbon".

Not
only was the Kaiser-Alexander-Huldigungs-Marsch not published in Vienna,
but it was also never performed there. It may well be that Strauss felt insufficiently
certain of the Austrian public's reaction to his tribute to a Russian monarch
responsible for overseeing the suppression of Polish 'freedom fighters'. But,
then again, Strauss had always shown himself remarkably adept at endearing
himself to local audiences by the simple expedient of re-titling his
compositions ...

This
recorded performance of the Kaiser-Alexander-Huldigungs-Marsch presents
Arthur Kulling's orchestration of Büttner's published piano edition (discovered
at the State Public Saltykow-Schtschedrin National Library, St Petersburg, by
Dr Thomas Aigner of the Vienna Institute for Strauss Research), as the original
orchestral version was not available in time for the recording in February
1994.

[5] BALLETTMUSIK
AUS "INDIGO UND DIE VIERZIG RÄUBER"

(Ballet
music from "Indigo and the Forty Thieves")

The
opening night playbill for Indigo und die vierzig Räuber (Indigo and the
Forty Thieves) credited the co-director of Vienna's Theater an der Wien,
Maximilian Steiner (1830-80), as librettist of this first stage work by
Vienna's Waltz King, Johann Strauss. The extent to which Steiner was involved
in this adaptation of a tale from The Arabian Nights remains unclear,
but the appearance of his solitary name masked the endeavours of as many as two
dozen co-authors - a fact which resulted in the operetta being dubbed Indigo
and the Forty Librettists. Yet, whatever the shortcomings of the Indigo libretto,
Strauss's eagerly awaited operetta début proved hugely popular with Viennese
audiences and, after its première at Steiner's theatre on 10 February 1871, it
was seen there a further sixty-nine times up until 20 January 1874.

It
was Maximilian Steiner's idea to present an impressive ballet scene during the
course of Indigo, as a musical and visual entertainment for the public.
For his part, Johann Strauss was happy to oblige, and the resulting ballet
music was inserted as No. 18a in Act 3, where it appears between the Act 3
'Introduction and Market Chorus' (No. 18) and Alibaba's 'Lied' (No. 19), "Kennt
Ihr Männer und Ihr Weiber". In seeking to evoke the world of The
Thousand and One Nights, the composer here deliberately avoided further
reference to the waltz, having already partially sated his audience's appetite
for three-quarter-time with the Act 1 Trio (No. 5), "la, sosingt
man, ja so singt man in der Stadt wo ich geboren".

During
the 1960s the conductor, composer and renowned Strauss authority, Max Schönherr
(1903-84) expanded Johann Strauss's ballet music from Indigo und die vierzig
Räuber into an effective freestanding concert piece. By skilful
instrumentation, Schönherr erected a framework of music from Act 3 around a
core section comprising an arrangement of Strauss's original ballet music,
regrettably omitting the Coda. In place of Strauss's original and superlative
Coda section, Schönherr decided to interpolate what - in his view - Strauss had
overlooked; namely music from the Act 1 waltz song for Fantasca, Janio and Romadur,
"Ja, so singt man, ja so singt man in der Stadt wo ich geboren" ('Yes,
that's how they sing, yes that's how they sing in the city where I was born').

Max
Schönherr's arrangement of the Indigo ballet music commences with the
closing bars of the Act 3 'Melodram' (No. 22a in C.A. Spina's first edition
piano / vocal score). This leads directly into the Act 2 'Schlachtrnusik' (No.
15), ending with an extended fanfare section which heralds Strauss's original
ballet music. Schönherr's arrangement excludes the Coda from the ballet,
instead interpolating music from the Act 1 waltz song, as mentioned above. Schönherr
then chose to end his arrangement with music taken from the beginning of the Allegro
section of the Act 3 Finale (Alibaba: "König, nimm von mir ein
Souvenir hier") through to the end of the operetta, adapting the final
bars himself.

Aficionados
of Viennese light music are occasionally aghast at Max Schönherr's 'modern'
arrangements of some Strauss music, prime areas for criticism including his
treatment of the ballet music from the operettas Der Carneval in Rom (Volume
45 of this CD series) and Indigo und die vierzig Räuber. In Light
Music from Austria: Reminiscences and Writings of Max Schönherr (1992), the
biographer Andrew Lamb seeks to explain Schönherr's intentions in the field of
arranging: "Most commonly the name of Schönherr as arranger is attached
to the compositions of the Strausses. His role in this connection is easily
misunderstood ... It is, in fact, basically an exercise in making the
music more readily accessible by presenting it according to the conventions of
the present day. Most obviously there is the need to rewrite certain parts in
the keys used by the transposing instruments of today. In addition there is the
need to present compositions in as faithful a form as possible for the varied
light music combinations of today". Max Schönherr's artistic
arrangement of Johann Strauss's ballet music from the operetta Indigo is
a typical example.

[6]
COLISEUM WALTZES o.op

Enhanced
by a lifelike portrait of Vienna's bewhiskered Waltz King as he appeared at the
time of his visit to the United States of America in 1872, the first piano
edition of Johann Strauss's Coliseum Waltzes was issued by the
Philadelphia publishing house of Lee & Walker and registered with the
Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington in 1872. No performing
material for orchestra is known to have been published. (Lee & Walker were
the successors to George Willig & Co. of Baltimore, the publishers of Strauss'
Enchantment Waltzes.)

The
waltz took its title from the focal point of the 1872 World's Peace Jubilee and
International Musical Festival, the gigantic Coliseum building erected in the
Back Bay district of Boston, Massachusetts, an area once part of Boston Harbour
which had been reclaimed by landfill. To a design by the architect William G.
Preston, work on the pilings for the Coliseum began on 4 March 1872, but on 26
April a severe whirlwind destroyed the partially constructed building. The
edifice which arose in its place departed from the original plans for a
curved-roof structure with an open span of 350 feet, and instead was closer to
the design of the earlier Coliseum, built for the 1869 National Peace Jubilee
in Boston's St James's Park (on the site of today's Copley Plaza Hotel), though
more ornamental and Italianate in external appearance. Notwithstanding the
havoc wrought by the windstorm, the mammoth timber-framed structure was
eventually completed in record time, ready for the opening day of festivities
on 17 June 1872. The exterior and interior of the Coliseum were decorated with banners up to
50 feet (15.24m) in length, the flags of various countries, stained glass
windows, heraldic emblems, crests and arms of all nations, carved reliefs of
famous composers and huge painted murals up to 1,400 square feet (130.10 square
metres) in area. The central feature of the front was a grand arched portal 25
feet (7.62m) in width and 50 feet in height, surmounted by a pediment, while
the roof was adorned with seven ventilating turrets, the central turret
predominating in size and elegance above the rest. Midway on either side rose a
Mansard-roofed tower 25 feet above the lean-to roofs. The completed Coliseum,
measuring 550 feet (167.6m) in length, 350 feet (106.7m) in width and 115 feet
(35.05m) in height, boasted a seating capacity for 50,000 persons.

It
seems that at no time during his official engagement at the Boston Jubilee from
17 June until 4 July 1872, nor at the benefit concert held in his honour on 6
July, did Johann Strauss conduct his Coliseum Waltzes. The American
newspapers which, between them, covered the festival in great detail, also
carried no reports of a performance of the waltz during Strauss's brief stay in
New York to conduct three concerts at the Academy of Music on 8, 10 and 12 July
1872. The existence of the Coliseum Waltzes was made known by Dann Chamberlin,
an American member of The Johann Strauss Society of Great Britain, who
unearthed the piano score during a visit to the Library of Congress in
Washington in autumn 1983. In due course he introduced the waltz to the
American musicologist, composer and arranger Jerome D. Cohen, whose
orchestration of the work for this Marco Polo recording is based on the Lee
& Walker piano edition. In his analysis of Johann's 'American' waltzes for
the journal Tritsch-Tratsch (No. 55, 1988), another member of the
British Strauss Society, Norman Godel, draws particular attention to theme 2B
of the Coliseum Waltzes, which he notes is written entirely in the minor
key. He observes that while there are many instances in Johann's waltzes of
themes starting and ending in minor keys (for example, the opening themes of Vibrationen
op. 204 and Märchen aus dem Orient op. 444),it is most unusual in a
Strauss waltz for a theme to remain throughout in the minor key. He continues: "Strangely,
Johann achieved it again in yet another American publication, namely theme 3A of
'Autograph'" (Volume 44 of this CD series) Returning to the Coliseum
Waltzes, Godel states further: "Although the waltz has no
Introduction - at least not in the piano arrangement - it possesses a Coda
which begins straight away with a repeat of the first theme, followed by themes
1B and 4B with no linking passages at all. However, the waltz concludes with a
37-bar passage more in keeping with that expected of a Strauss waltz". Whether
by design or coincidence, three of the first four notes of the waltz are the
same as those in theme 1A of Johann's An der schönen blauen Donau (By
the beautiful blue Danube) op. 314, while the opening themes of both works are
rhythmically very similar.

The
Boston Coliseum itself is no more; but the memory of it and the events of
summer 1872 live on in the Coliseum Waltzes.

[7]
FAUST-QUADRILLE (Faust Quadrille) [op. 277]

To
a text by J. Barbier and M. Carré, after Goethe's dramatic poem, Faust (Part
1, 1808;Part 2, 1832), Charles-François Gounod's opera of the same name
enjoyed its world première at the Théâtre-Lyrique in Paris on 19 March 1859.
Such was the success of the opera that Gounod (1818-93) was able to celebrate
its 500th performance in the French capital on 4 November 1887. Following the
Paris première, opera houses around the world soon added the five-act work to
their repertoires: Vienna first saw it (in German) on 8 February 1862 at the k.k.
Hof-Operntheater, while in January 1864 it was staged for the first time at St
Petersburg, in Italian (Not until 27 September 1869 was a Russian-language
production of the opera mounted at St Petersburg.)

Johann
Strauss's Faust-Quadrille was among the cache of compositions which the
38-year-old Viennese Kapellmeister wrote for Russian audiences attending his
1864 summer season of concerts at the Vauxhall Pavilion in Pavlovsk. Although
he naturally wished to take advantage of the recent production of Faust at
St Petersburg, it remains wholly unclear why Johann troubled to make this
arrangement from the Gounod opera, rather than turn to the Faust-Quadrille which
his brother Josef had already composed and first performed at Schwender's Neue
Welt establishment in Hietzing on 11 August 1861. Whatever the reason, Johann's
own Faust-Quadrille appeared for the first time on the programme of his
concert at Pavlovsk on 11 May 1864 (= 29 April, Russian calendar), just six
days after the opening (5 May / 23 April 1864) of his ninth season under
Russian skies. The new quadrille proved popular with the Pavlovsk audiences and
was performed a total of 15 times during the five-month engagement.

Presumably
since Josef Strauss's Faust-Quadrille had already appeared from C.A. Spina's
Vienna publishing house (as op. 112),brother Johann's Faust-Quadrille
remained unpublished in his home city. Instead, the work saw publication
only in Russia when A. Büttner of St Petersburg issued it as op. 277 with the
fashionable French title, Faust-Quadrille sur des thèmes de l'opéra Faust et
Marguerite de Ch. Gounod, par Jean Strauss. As Dr Thomas Aigner of the
Vienna Institute for Strauss Research correctly established in his article "Hommage
à Gounod - Wettstreit der Brüder Strauss?" (Homage to Gounod - Rivalry
between the Strauss brothers?), published in the journal Die Fledermaus (No.
6, January 1993), Johann's and Josef's quadrilles on themes from Gounod's Faust
could hardly have existed alongside each other in the Strauss Orchestra's
repertoire: twelve of the respective fifteen (Josef) and sixteen (Johann)
themes feature in both quadrilles, albeit for the most part in a different
order. For the 'Finale' section (Figure 6), both brothers commence with music
from the orchestral prelude to the 'Soldiers' Chorus' (No. 22 in the opera's
published piano score), but only Johann remained with the impressive melody of
the soldiers' chorus itself ("Gloire immortelle de nos aïeux") to
render the more effective climax. Subsequently, both quadrilles disappeared
into the Strauss Orchestra's archive fairly rapidly, Johann's Faust-Quadrille
having been located during Dr Aigner's researches at the State Public Saltykow-Schtschedrin
National Library in St Petersburg.

(NB:
Following the world première, the score of Gounod's Faust was frequently
re-worked. The above synopsis is based on the reconstruction made in 1869 for
the Paris Opéra.)

[8] KAISER FRANZ JOSEPH-JUBILÄUMS-MARSCH

(Emperor
Franz Josef Jubilee March) o. op

On
2 December 1848, in the north Moravian garrison town of Olmütz (now Olomouc in
the former Czechoslovakia), there took place two ceremonies which were to have
enormous import on the passage of European history. In the wake of the defeat
of the Revolution in Vienna, the seriously ailing Austrian Emperor Ferdinand
(1793-1875) read out the Abdication Act, declaring: "Important
decisions have led Usto the irrevocable decision to lay down Our Crown
in favour of Our beloved nephew, Archduke Franz Josef ...". In so
doing, Ferdinand surrendered his Austrian Imperial titles, together with the
crowns of Bohemia, Hungary and Lombardy, to the 18-year-old Archduke Franz von
Habsburg-Lothringen, eldest son of Archduke Karl (1802-78) and his wife, the
Archduchess Sophie (1805-72). Retaining his two baptismal names as sovereign,
the young monarch chose to reign as 'Franz Josef I', rather than 'Franz II' as
styled in the first draft of the proclamation.

Fifty
years later, the Golden Jubilee of Franz Josef's reign was marked by
celebrations throughout the Habsburg Empire, not only during the anniversary
month of December 1898 but also in anticipation of it. For his part, Johann
Strauss had some time previously been called upon to honour the Emperor's
forthcoming semicentennial with a suitable musical tribute, and in this
connection a march had been mentioned. The composer dutifully sketched out a Kaiser
Franz Joseph-Jubiläums-Marsch; copies of the score for this march (for
chorus and orchestra, but without text, as well as for piano) were found in the
Waltz King's posthumous papers after he died on 3 June 1899. These are
preserved in the Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek (Vienna City and Regional
Library).

It
seems that during spring 1898 Johann Strauss changed his plans regarding his
intended Jubilee tribute, for he was required to furnish the Wiener Männergesang-Verein
(Vienna Men's Choral Association) with a work for their concert at the Federal
Sharpshooters' Festival in the Prater on 28 June 1898. The work he
contributed was the Auf's Korn! Bundesschützen-Matsch (Take Aim! Federal
Sharpshooters' March - see Volume 50 of this CD series) op. 478, evidently a
choral arrangement of an unnamed march he had already written, and to which the
popular writer Vincenz Chiavacci (1847-1916) had added a text. Appropriately,
Strauss dedicated this cheerful work "To the Central Committee for the
Imperial Jubilee and the 5th Austrian Federal Shooting Competition". The
composer took the title of his march from the first line of Chiavacci's text ("Leget
an, nehmt auf's Korn, zielt und schiesst / Ihr wackern Schützenleut'"), while
he appropriated the entire trio section from his as yet unperformed and
unpublished Kaiser Franz Joseph-Jubiläums-Matsch. Johann himself
chronicled the precise course of events in a letter he wrote to his brother, Eduard,
on 30 May 1898: "... Icannot send you the ['Kaiser Franz
Joseph-Jubiläums'] march, because I have used the Trio for the Schützenmarsch
[ = 'Auf's Korn!'] and will write another Trio for the Männergesangverein
(in the autumn). I shall send you the march if you should need the 'Obersteigermarsch'
[march by Carl Zeller from his 1894 operetta 'Der Obersteiger']. On the
other side of the sheet on which this is written, is the Kaiserjubiläumsmarsch,
which has just been carved up and so is unusable. [Jungmann &] Lerch
(the publisher) will send you the Schützenmarsch. Performance of the same at
the end of June. [I] Do not possess a second full score, otherwise I
would have made this available to you immediately".

In
the late afternoon of Sunday 27 November 1898, five months after the
performance by the Wiener Männergesang-Verein, the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein
was the venue for a "Benefit Concert by Eduard Strauss, Imperial and
Royal Court Ball Music Director, with the participation of Johann Strauss,
Imperial and Royal Court Ball Music Director". On the programme were
two works which had been written for the Emperor's Jubilee on 2 December 1898: Eduard
Strauss's Jubel-Walzer (Jubilation Waltz) op. 296, which had been heard
for the first time on 27 February 1898, and a purely orchestral version of Johann
Strauss's Kaiser Franz Josef-Jubiläums-Marsch [sic], which was enjoying
its première. Both pieces were conducted by their respective composers. Johann repeated his
dedication march at the Theater an der Wien on 1 December 1898, the day before
Franz Josef's actual fiftieth anniversary.

What
appears, at first sight, comparatively straightforward soon becomes confused
because of a note against the Kaiser Franz Joseph-Jubiläums-Marsch on
the programme of the Musikverein concert on 27 November 1898. This reads: "Published
for piano and orchestra by Jungmann & Lerch, I. Augustinerstrasse 8 [Vienna]".
The only march by Johann Strauss ever issued by this publishing house (formerly
C.A. Spina) was the Auf's Korn! Bundesschützen-Marsch, and it therefore
remains unclear which version of the march was heard at the Musikverein.
Regrettably, no light was shed on the matter by the Fremden-Blatt, which
reported on this performance of the "brilliant 'Kaiser-Jubiläums-Marsch'"in its
edition of 29 November 1898: "This resounding piece of music, which had
an electrifying effect, will be a valuable gift to the military bands and will
quickly become popular".

This
first-ever recording of Johann Strauss's Kaiser Franz Joseph-Jubiläums-Marsch
utilises the score copy housed in the collection of the Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek.

[9]
SOUNDS FROM BOSTON (GESCHICHTEN AUF DEM BOSTON). WALTZES o.op

According
to a note in the Boston Daily Evening Transcript on 7 June 1872, "Johann
Strauss has concluded to compose a dashing potpourri, made up of excerpts from
the best of his former works, and to which he will give the appropriate name of
'Sounds of Boston'". The American
newspaper printed this information just eight days before Vienna's Waltz King
arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, to conduct at the World's Peace Jubilee and
International Musical Festival, a mammoth musical event extending from 17 June
until its 'official' close on 4 July 1872.

For
some reason, perhaps because he had not completed it in time, Strauss did not
perform Sounds of Boston at the International Musical Festival nor at
any of the attendant entertainments. The work did, however, subsequently appear
as Sounds from Boston [sic] from the Boston publishing house of White,
Smith & Perry in three separate printed editions: piano solo, reduced ("Arranged
for 9 parts") orchestra and full orchestra. The piano edition
of the waltz was registered with the Office of the Librarian of Congress at
Washington in 1872, and the waltz (like all but one of those originating from Johann's
1872 visit) was never published in Vienna. At the suggestion of Richard
Pittman, conductor of the Concord Orchestra of Massachusetts and professor at
the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, two members of The Johann
Strauss Society of Great Britain, Dann Chamberlin and Norman Godel, unearthed
the orchestral parts for Sounds from Boston at the Conservatory, and Mr Chamberlin
later located the piano score in the Arthur Fiedler Collection at Boston
University. Having earlier suspected the probable intervention of a publisher's
house arranger, the American composer, arranger and musicologist, Jerome D.
Cohen, examined the published material for full orchestra and was immediately
struck by "the delicacy of the scoring", strongly reminiscent
of "the kind of transparency you find in a genuine Strauss
orchestration". As a result, Mr Cohen abandoned any idea of
orchestrating the waltz afresh and confined himself to correcting various
errors in the White, Smith & Perry orchestral parts when preparing his
performing edition, as recorded here. The thematic material used for Sounds
from Boston is drawn from the following published Strauss waltzes:

One
can only surmise that Johann considered it an apposite Viennese greeting to
America to include in the Introduction of Sounds from Boston a quotation
from his father's waltz Deutsche Lust oder: Donau-Lieder ohne Text (German
Delight, or Danube Songs Without Words) op. 127. (He had also quoted from this
waltz in the Coda of his earlier "Deutsche" Walzer op. 220 of
1859.) The remaining themes comprising Sounds from Boston are all from
waltzes by the younger Johann Strauss dating from 1851 to 1866. An unusual
feature of Sounds from Boston is the fact that it consists of five waltz
sections, a standard form which Johann had adopted for the final time with his
waltz Freuet euch des Lebens op. 340 of 1870.

White,
Smith & Perry's first piano edition of Sounds from Boston bears an
alternative title in German: Geschichten auf dem Boston (literally,
Tales from Boston), as well as the composer's dedication "To Napier
Lothian, Boston, U.S.A.". Lothian was musical director of the Boston
Theatre at the time of Johann's visit in 1872: on 22 June, Johann and his wife
attended a performance by the Vokes Family of The Belles of the Kitchen (being
"laughter-provoking illustrations of high life below stairs"), and
during the interval Lothian honoured the Viennese maestro by directing the
theatre orchestra in a performance of Johann's waltz An der schönen blauen Donau
(By the beautiful blue Danube) op. 314. The Boston Daily Evening
Transcript later reported in its edition of 1 July 1872: "Strauss
paid Mr. Napier Lothian a very handsome compliment, saying he had
never seen anyone conduct his waltzes in more perfect time. He also praised the
fine orchestra of the Boston Theatre". It seems probable that the
waltz Sounds from Boston was published after this episode. It is
interesting to note that Lothian's wife taught for many years at the New
England Conservatory of Music, and the orchestrations for some 101 works by the
three Strauss brothers (including Johann's Sounds from Boston) are today
housed in the Conservatory's "Napier Lothian Theater Orchestra
Collection", once the private property of Lothian himself.

If
a report published in the New York Sun on 13 July 1872 is to be
believed, Strauss had little time for Boston or its inhabitants. In answer to
the question posed by the paper's journalist, "How do you like
Boston?", Vienna's Waltz King allegedly responded (in
uncharacteristically undiplomatic fashion): "I did not like it. Boston
is Puritanical, stupid, dull. There is no life in the street. There is no
display of elegance or luxury. The women are homely, and do not dress nicely. I
do not like Boston. But with New York I am perfectly charmed (mit New York bin ich
ganz entzückt)". The New York Sun interviewer may well have
been enjoying a bluster of 'one-upmanship' over his Boston rivals, since a
journalistic duel had raged between newspapers in Boston and New York
throughout the Jubilee celebrations. Doubtless born of New York's jealousy over
'parochial' Boston's colossal musical venture, the cities' respective
newspapers adopted a mutually contemptuous approach: while, for example, the New
York World (19.06.1872) decried Strauss as "the little hop and skip
maestro, hot from the wicked salons of Vienna" and adjudged his music "clap-trap",
the Boston Globe (21.06.1872) retorted that "New York is to
be pitied" and a Boston periodical, Jubilee Days (20.06.1872),
likened New York's critics to a herd of mules.

[10] BALLETTMUSIK
AUS "DIE FLEDERMAUS"

(Ballet
music from "Die Fledermaus" / "The Bat")

Johann
Strauss's three-act comic operetta Die Fledermaus is not only the
composer's most famous stage work, but it may justly lay claim to being the most
celebrated operetta of all time. Since the world première of the piece,
conducted by the composer at Vienna's Theater an der Wien on Easter Sunday 5
April 1874, there can scarcely have been an opera house or theatre in the world
that has not staged Die Fledermaus, while audiences everywhere continue
to be intoxicated by Strauss's sparkling 'Champagne Operetta'.

Yet
only a very few of those who see the many productions of Die Fledermaus are
familiar with the ballet music which Johann Strauss wrote for Prince Orlofsky's
grand supper party in Act 2. As a rule, Strauss's ballet score is replaced by Fruhlingsstimmen
or another of the great waltzes, or by a quick polka such as Unter Donner
und Blitz. Since, invariably, these interpolations are presented as a
ballet sequence, it is as much an injustice to Strauss himself that his
original ballet music is discarded, as it is a reflection of the high-handed
attitude of theatrical (and recording) producers who elect to omit it.

The
musically and visually appealing ballet occupies a central position (as No. 11b
in the score) in the Finale of Act 2. After a 9-bar introduction, it is divided
into five quite distinct sections, the individual segments of which present
characteristic dances with the following titles: Spanish (danced at the
première by Fräulein Grillich and eight ladies from the ballet), Scottish (Fräulein
Geraldini and Messrs Fechtner, Wollschack, Meier and Wiest), Russian (Fräulein
Angelina Bonesi, Fräulein Stubenvoll and Messrs Nagelschmidt, Gwetkofsky, Guhr,
Schmidt and Großeli), Bohemian (Fräulein Walter, Fräulein Raab and Anna
Thorn) and Hungarian (Fräulein Benda and Herr Couqui). In the Bohemian
section, a polka is played to which the chorus sings the merry text: "Marianka,
komm und tanz' me hier!" ('Marianka, come here and dance with me!').
The Hungarian dance concludes with a reprise of music from Rosalinde's vocal Csárdás
(No. 10) heard earlier in Act 2. Strauss took a great deal of trouble with
his cleverly contrived ballet score, deliberately omitting reference to the
Viennese Waltz since the rhythms of this latter dance provide several
highlights in Act 2, most notably in the 'Fledermaus-Walzer' itself ("Ha,
welch ein Fest, welche Nacht voll Freud'!").

The
value of this "international" ballet sequence was not lost on
the first-night critics, with the reporter for the Wiener Extrablatt (7.04.1874)
noting: "The second act contains charming and characteristic ballet
music ... A virtuoso comic polka, masterly danced by the ladies Walter, Raab
and Anna Thorn, caused a complete sensation and had to be repeated". It
is all the more surprising, therefore, that Johann Strauss's ballet score for Die
Fledermaus has only very rarely found its way into the concert hall: the
Strauss Orchestra, for example, never included the work in its repertoire,
although the orchestral parts existed in its Archive. This sadly neglected
music, so rich in variety throughout all its five sections, thus forms an
important addition to the collection of recordings in this Complete Edition.

[11] AUFZUGSMARSCH
AUS "EINE NACHT IN VENEDIG"

(Processional
March from" A Night in Venice") o.op

The
Aufzugsmarsch (No.17a in the score) heralds the Act 3 Finale (No. l7b)
of Johann Strauss's operetta Eine Nacht in Venedig. The setting for this
last act is the renowned St Mark's Square in Venice, before the moonlit
cathedral. The original version of the operetta, seen in Berlin on 3 October
1883, underwent major structural changes to music and libretto before the work
was mounted in Vienna just six days later. The revised libretto prepared for the
first Viennese production on 9 October 1883 details the scenic and
choreographic directions for the colourful masked procession which accompanies
Strauss's brisk and tuneful Aufzugsmarsch (quoted here, in translation,
from the Complete Edition of Eine Nacht in Venedig, published by Doblinger
/ Universal Edition in 1970):

"Fanfares resound, then a splendid march strikes up.
The procession opens with a number of Harlequins, Pierrots etc. Then come the
gondoliers with flower-encircled oars, carrying in their midst a long gondola
in the familiar Venetian form. Then a group of Venetian mirrors in the
mediaeval style, each carried by an individual as a breastplate. Now follows St
Mark, at his side a winged lion. Various popular objects from Venice follow after
him, for example the clock-tower, behind [it] a large walking
bell. Tritons, playing on shell trumpets, go on ahead of Adria [the
personification of the Adriatic Sea], who stands on a carriage of shell
drawn by negroes bedecked with seaweed wreaths and gleaming pearls; there
follows - personified - the 'Frutti di mare', comprising fish etc. The
procession passes at a moderately brisk tempo; when it stops, pigeons fly about
from all corners of the stage: the pigeons of St Mark's, portrayed by a
graceful troupe of ladies. They step forth in pairs (as male and female
pigeons) in short, white, decorative feather costumes, each with a pigeon on
their left shoulder, sandals on their feet, their helmet-like head coverings
shaped exactly like the crest of a pigeon."

Strauss's
spirited orchestral Aufzugsmarsch is crafted from melodies in Acts 2 and
3 of Eine Nacht in Venedig. A fanfare section leads directly into music
from the chorus in the Act 2 Finale (No. 13), "Jetzt ist Zeit zur Lustbarkeit".
The themes of the Trio (2A and 2B) are taken from the 'Melodram' section in
the Act 3 Finale (No. 17b), theme 2A itself being earlier heard sung by Caramello
(at twice the speed in "Man steckt ein") in the Act 2
'Ensemble und Couplets' (No. 11).

The
Aufzugsmarsch from Eine Nacht in Venedig was first played as a
concert piece on Sunday 14 October 1883 at the Restaurant F. Puchtl (then
situated at Mariahilferstrasse No. 1, in Vienna's sixth district) by the
civilian orchestra of Carl Wilhelm Drescher (1850-1925). The announcement of
this evening concert in the pages of the Fremden-Blatt (14.10.1883)
read: "New: first performance from Johann Strauss's operetta 'Eine Nacht
in Venedig' - 1. Aufzugsmarsch 2. Gondellied 3. Grosses Potpourri".
(For this performance, Drescher himself arranged these pieces for salon
orchestra.) The appearance of this advertisement is particularly suprising in
view of the fact that C.A. Spina (Alwin Cranz), the publisher of Eine Nacht
in Venedig, did not announce the issue of the above three extracts from
Strauss's operetta until 27 October 1883.

The
first concert performance of the Aufzugsmarsch by the Strauss Orchestra
followed six weeks later when the composer's brother, Eduard Strauss, conducted
the work at his Sunday afternoon concert ("Wiens Tanzmusik" -
Vienna's Dance Music) in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein on 25
November 1883. It remains in question whether this performance, given in Eduard's
own arrangement, was in the original key of A flat major (as the march appears in
the operetta score), or in the new key of G major used in the printed edition
of the march.

The
author is indebted to Professor Franz Mailer for his assistance in the
preparation of these notes.

Bratislava
City Choir

The
Bratislava Chamber Choir was formed in 1971 from former members of various
university choirs. Eight years later it took the name of the Bratislava City
Choir, in recognition of its unique position in the cultural life of the
Slovakian capital, with its long musical traditions. The choir has enjoyed the
services of conductors of great distinction during the twenty years it has been
in existence and since 1977 has been under the direction of Ladislav Holásek,
the chorus master of the Slovak National Opera. The choir has a busy schedule
at home, performing regularly at the annual Bratislava Music Festival and with
the major orchestras of Slovakia. Abroad the choir has taken part in a number
of international competitions throughout Europe, from Llangollen to Greece,
winning many awards.

Slovak
Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava)

The
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), the oldest symphonic ensemble in
Slovakia, was founded in 1929 at the instance of Milos Ruppeldt and Oskar Nedbal,
prominent personalities in the sphere of music. Ondrej Lenárd was appointed its
conductor in 1970 and in 1977 its conductor-in-chief, succeeded recently by
Robert Stankowsky. The orchestra has given successful concerts both at home and
abroad, in Germany, Russia, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, Great
Britain, Hong Kong and Japan. For Marco Polo the orchestra has recorded works
by Glazunov, Glière, Miaskovsky and other late romantic composers and film
music of Honegger, Bliss, Ibert and Khachaturian as well as several volumes of
the label's Johann Strauss Edition. Naxos recordings include symphonies and
ballets by Tchaikovsky, and symphonies by Berlioz and Saint-Saëns.

Johannes
Wildner

Johannes
Wildner was born in the Austrian resort of Mürzzuschlag in 1956 and studied
violin and conducting, taking his diploma at the Vienna Musikhochschule and
proceeding to a doctorate in musicology. A member of the Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra, he has toured widely as leader of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra's Johann
Strauss Ensemble and of the Vienna Mozart Academy. As a conductor he has
directed the Orchestra Sinfonica dell'Emilia Romagna Arturo Toscanini, the
Budapest State Opera Orchestra, the Silesian Philharmonic, the Malmo Symphony
Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic and others. He has recorded works by
Schumann, Wagner and Mozart for Naxos and is one of the main conductors in the
Marco Polo Johann Strauss II complete edition.